"Well, that was quite intelligent," Marcus mocked.

He was on her then. His hands gripped her shoulders, drawing her in, tight against the stark hardness of his body. He felt like a marble statue. Alexandra was frozen, her limbs heavy and cumbersome against the strength of his grip.

"I hope it hurt," she whispered brokenly. When Marcus lowered his mouth over hers, the hot sting of unshed tears swept the backs of her eyelids. His insistent lips were warm and moist, and covered hers possessively. His tongue probed heatedly into her mouth, forcing her lips open and delving inside.

It felt like she was being eaten by some mythological creature. Like his mouth was working to dissolve her soul, and digest it slowly. She couldn't stem her helpless quivering. The wind picked up, swirling leaves around them as the storm front approached, but still the kiss went on.

Finally he withdrew the searing heat of his lips from hers. "Yes," he sighed against her flushed cheek, nuzzling it. "I just wanted to taste you." An odd note of regret rang in the timbre of his words. "And so sweet too. Why did it have to be this way, Alexandra?"

"What way?" she managed to return breathlessly. If only he would reason.

"You refused me. You lied to me. You ran from me."

"You frighten me," she returned. The threatening rumble of thunder accentuated her words like a cheap movie.

"I was at the top of my game, Alexandra. But still, you chose him."

"Jamie?" She was confused, why was Marcus acting like a jilted lover? They'd gone out only once...

"Jamie," he scoffed. "A hick. A local. You are so above that."

His fingers were in her tousled hair now, stroking gently, then knuckling across her cheek ever so softly. When he found a wetness there, Alex heard him gasp. "You're crying," he murmured with a tinge of surprise.

"How could I pick you, Marcus," she managed to choke out, "when you were hired by Ridgeway to kill me? Why don't you just get it over with?"

His fingers found her neck and gently stroked it, his thumbs teasing her jawbone. She whimpered, feeling as breakable as a china doll in his grip. Her neck would snap with the first twist by those iron fingers.

"After our date, I knew I couldn't allow things to play out the way Ridgeway intended. He was nothing but a land tycoon with dirty tactics. He inherited that logging business too, and all his money. There was nothing.... special about him. He was not self-made.

But you, Alexandra, are special. Born out of nothing, the lowest of the low, but destined for greatness. Like me. I feel it, I sense it." He paused, and dipped his head to suckle on her trembling lower lip. "I taste it."

Her mind whirled. "Me?" she whispered. Think, think, think. "Special too?"

Alex forced her hands to unclench and she slid her arms around his waist slowly and tentatively. She bolstered her courage and allowed her mouth to tilt upward, and her lips to connect again with Marcus's moist, hot mouth.

He drew her in eagerly, even tighter, against the startling granite of his body. She could feel his thick erection. There would be no breaking free of this man. He was the most dominantly male creature she had ever encountered.

Her roaming fingers soon found the knife for which she'd been searching. She hesitated a moment, then deepened her kiss, allowing her tongue to play back against his own now. Her fingers sought the hilt, and grasped it carefully.

Marcus sighed against her mouth. "Not a good move, Alexandra."

The grip around her neck tightened like bands of steel. Fat heavy droplets of rain began to splatter across her cheeks as the heavens released their weight, washing the saline of her tears clean away. His thumbs dug into her trachea, cutting off any ounce of air to her lungs and causing her eyes to bulge. There was precious little time for fear before the darkest night of all drew her in.

Marcus rocked back on his heels and watched his exquisite angel as she slept. Three times he had choked her into unconsciousness, and three times she had come back, opening those hazel eyes to stare at him with a mixture of confusion and hope.

The rain started and stopped in short cold spurts, as if the storm could not make up its mind whether to stay watch him commit his deeds or not. This time though, Alexandra had not awakened, even when he slapped her cheek roughly. Could she have died so easily?

The massive trees croaked and groaned in the gusts of wind that ripped through the understory from above, bent on cruel penetration, and actually caused a ripple of chills across his back and neck. Marcus bent forward, his knees growing colder and wetter from the dampened soil beneath him, and laid his cheek next to Alexandra's softly parted lips. He could not sense a breath there.

His heart literally plummeted in that moment. What had he done? The sudden fear that wracked him was surprising in its intensity. Marcus knew for certain then that he was not meant to kill this woman. She belonged to him. With training, she would possess a soul to match his. His black anger had strangely dissipated.

Quickly, he slid one cold wet hand up under her tee shirt to find the place between her rounded breasts where here heart lay, and pressed upon it with two fingers. There was a beat. When he glanced back at her face, her eyes were open. He felt a rush of relief so strong that it gave him a moment's weakness in his arms and legs.

He would give anything to transport them out of this mountainous hell and into the comfort of his sedan as they cruised away into the night toward the city. Thunder cracked loudly to his right, as if hell's gates were about to unleash the wrath inside.

She stared at him oddly, cold and detached. No fear. Her strength pleased him.

"Alexandra," he began firmly, "we are leaving here. Now. You will not fight me."

"No."

"This is what is meant to be. And I need to teach you to listen." He couldn't contain the edge that crept into his voice at her continued disobedience. Lightning illuminated the forest briefly, and he had a moment to gaze into the hazel of her kaleidoscope eyes. Thunder cracked again, closer and insistent.

"No." She kicked him then, quick and fierce. Unprepared, he took it square in the balls. The nauseating pain drew a roar of renewed anger from deep within his chest.

"Bitch!"

Up on her palms now, Alexandra tried to scuttle backwards away from him, but he nabbed her wet ankle. Behind her, the stallion danced nervously. "You're going to get us both trampled!" he bellowed, dragging her toward him again. His anger swelled further, black and threatening at the base of his skull. No control.

The stallion moved with her, his giant hooves dancing ever closer to her head, and Marcus cursed. The wind became a low shriek as the thunder head overtook the mountain top, and its voice rumbled continuously.

With the next flash of lightning he found her neck again. She managed to bite his left wrist, piercing the flesh and drawing blood before he attained a good hold over her wind pipe. He laid the full weight of his body across hers, pinning her and steeling her of all her struggles.

"Why, Alexandra? Give this up. You belong with me."

"Jamie," she wheezed.

The pain in his temple returned with a vengeance in that millisecond, with the utterance of that one name, and slivered through his brain and into the back of his eyeball. It throbbed with its own separate heartbeat. He felt his own heart escalate, and his face flush deeply. Heat seared his body even though the cold wind enveloped his wet skin. Blackness. Fury. Death.

Jamie. He could not stop it, now. His fingers twitched and tightened against her spasming windpipe, squeezing slowly.

It was time. With his right hand, Marcus withdrew the knife from its case on his belt, holding her trembling body still with his own, and limiting her air with his left fist around her neck. Not too tight though. Damned if she wasn't going to feel her death. Jamie.

The air around them nearly sizzled as it crackled with the storm's latent energy come to life, and the scent of wet leaves was replaced with a strange and tinny ozone smell. A fresh webwork of lightning scrolled across the sky above like some ancient pagan script, and lit the night for another instant. Marcus glanced up at the writhing tree-limbs etched with white light from the snapping heavens. It made him think of hell.

When he looked down again, Alexandra's staring eyes were icy blue. Her wet and tousled, once-brunette hair was plaited in long silvery pigtails that curled at the tips. She smiled up at him. It wasn't her mouth at all.

A scream wrenched from his lips, a thin, disgusting baby scream, but he couldn't control the pitch or the duration at all. She touched the wrist of the hand that he had wrapped around her throat, and her skin was cold and dry. Still, she smiled.

Marcus exploded backward off of her, keening. He was mad. This was madness.

And then the hound of hell was unloosed from the gates beyond. It rushed him and took him down hard into the wet leaves. Thick, wet soil that smelled of worms filled his nostrils, as the hound bellowed like a bull.

Marcus rolled and struggled to his feet, trying to shake the thing off him. He saw cavernous eyes and a pale face in the dark. It was a man. Or a demon.

His fist connected with flesh and he heard a cry of pain. It was a man. The knowledge gave him strength and Marcus swung again, striking a gut that gave considerably with the impact, causing the man-thing to back off of him completely.

The next flash of light showed just how dangerously close they had rolled toward the edge of the cliff of rocks.

He steadied himself. He drew his knife and waved it menacingly, preparing to throw with the next flash of lightening. But Marcus was simply not ready when the giant man rushed him head on in the darkness with the force of a linebacker, taking them both over the edge of the precipice and out into the empty space beyond.

"Mouse!"

Alexandra could not believe that he had found her. And that he had taken Marcus over the cliff in a wild, sacrificial dive. She cradled his big head in her lap, crying helplessly.

Alex tried to shield his face from the light mist of rain with her body. The storm had passed, and the thunder and lightning had ceased. But there was blood all over his scalp, and a lot of it. His right leg was twisted up under him sickeningly.

Twenty feet away, Marcus's battered body lay impaled upon a shard of a trunk from the remains of a fallen tree, struck by a similar electrical storm many years ago. Once glance at him with the flashlight that she had taken from her pack on the ATV showed that he had likely been dead before he reached that final resting place.

Mouse had a pulse, but it was weak and he hadn't moved. Not good at all. He was unresponsive with an open head wound, and she had no idea how bad it really was. No cell phone. No aid. She trembled with the helplessness of her predicament.

In her head, she heard the voice of Marta speak again.

Do not worry, Alexandra. I am with him.

She sobbed audibly at the words. "No, Marta! Please, he shouldn't die like this. Do something...please."

Look down, child.

She did. Mouse's eyes were gazing up at her. "Ow-lex."

She kissed him with sweet and sudden joy.

In an abrupt burst, helicopters lit the night sky above with their own form of whirring thunder, and thick beams of spotlights sliced across the forest floor. She looked up into the brilliant white light. And thought of heaven.

Waiting for Eden ~*~*~*~*~*~.

Epilogue.

It was a cold December morning when the sign went up. Sunlight danced merrily across the countryside. It warmed her shoulders with its sheer brilliance, reflecting off of the white shroud of snow that blanketed the fields and forests. Alexandra walked down the driveway, her Danner boots crunching audibly as she tread across the packed snow that she had plowed only yesterday.

She hadn't realized that in the upper reaches of the Black Forest, it snowed almost every single day. Jamie told her it was something called a "lake effect." It happened every year when cool, atmospheric conditions and cold winds began to move across long expanses of the warmer Great Lakes waters. The strong, winter gales provided energy and picked up currents of water vapor, which froze into snow and were deposited to the east.

Jamie said that once the lakes froze over later in January, the heavy snows would taper off, though never quite completely. She should just go ahead and get used to deep snow. Alex bought a plow for the four-wheeler and was getting by, so far.

A Department of Conservation and Natural Resources truck was parked at the entrance to her driveway off Stoney Run, and she spotted Jamie's sandy head above the others with him. He had grumbled earlier about how difficult it was to dig a post hole in winter, but there was no way she would accept waiting until the spring thaw. No way whatsoever.

Jamie spotted her, and cupped his gloved hands around his mouth. "Hey Lovey, come take a look at this. You're gonna go nuts."

She grinned back at him skeptically, wondering if he was teasing her or not. She would always wonder with him a he kept her on her toes. As she in turn did to him. Laughingly, Alexandra noted that she really wouldn't have it any other way.

Jamie made her cover her eyes with her mittened hands, while the men chuckled to themselves. When he had her positioned just so, he tousled the fluffy ball on top of her winter hat. "Go ahead and peek now, Alex."

She peeked. It was lovely, far beyond her expectations. The sign was approximately four feet wide and carved into an exquisite slab of wood that exposed the uniquely swirling grain pattern inside.

"Eden Wild Area and Equestrian Ranch," she murmured. "Donated by Alexandra A. Winters."

She looked over her shoulder at Jamie in amazement. "Wild Area?"

"A Wild Area is a special designation," he replied. "Those trees up there are now protected permanently. No roads, no lumbering, no motorized vehicles, no mining."

Her mouth opened in surprise. "Ezra will be so happy."

"He is," Jamie laughed. "He will be here shortly, I imagine."

Alex recalled her long conversations with Ezra after that fateful night. Although she hadn't visually seen Marta again, Alex could simply feel the woman near to the ranch - always. But it was a good feeling. Ezra had been so proud of his Marta. And now, of his Alex.

Marta's impact had filled them all with an incredible appreciation for life, and the future afterward. Ezra himself was feistier than ever. Only yesterday, he had brought over a pile of old photographs and letters from when Marta was a girl for them to sift through.

She looked back to the sign. "The craftsmanship is amazing. Just amazing." The carved lines were burned out carefully to provide a natural relief. Behemoth trees lined a mountain ridge in the backdrop of the sign. Horses grazed serenely in the meadows below.

"Well you can thank my bro," Jamie returned with a chuckle.

"Aaron??" she gasped. "Really?"

"He has many talents beyond automobiles," Jamie replied. His little brother had suffered terribly over the loss of Tracey, although they all had really. She had not deserved that kind of an ending to a life that had already been so hard. Aaron had immersed himself into all sorts of things, and sworn off all alcohol. As a result, his amazing talents had been emerging, catching the entire family by surprise.

"I would say so," Alex returned. "This is exquisitely crafted."

"Horses are allowed within wild areas," Jamie added, rubbing her lower back gently and possessively in response to her amazement. "You can have more of those group trail rides you love this spring. And you can continue your breeding program, and even board other horses."

Her resulting grin had all the men smiling back. "I'm so grateful," she murmured, feeling the brim of tears. She blinked them back. There would be no more tears here.

Max Weikert chimed in. "We are grateful too, Alex. Without you, you know this place would have gone to Ridgeway Lumber, and there would have been nothing we could have done to stop it. In the light of all the tragedy that has happened, this seemed like the smartest thing to do to protect this property."

Jamie tweaked her rump. "Hey, where's Mouse?"

"His ankle was still bothering him. I made him prop it up and ice it."

"Oh he's gonna be ticked he missed this," Jamie shook his head.

"Not really," she returned with a smile. "He's putting together Marta's genealogy album today." Mouse and Alex had started a new series of ornate albums together, documenting and pressing his precious flowers, and labeling the new pictures as Ezra described their origin. Her Native American bloodline was proving fascinating.

The men milled about the DCNR truck, talking and packing up their equipment. Jamie bent down to her ear. "You think we'll have time to sneak upstairs before it comes?" he whispered with a little nip at the lobe.

"I would say so," she whispered back. "I want to continue our discussion of fine art."

He laughed deeply, and grabbing her hands, kissed their mittened tips, wool and all. Together, they headed back up the drive toward Eden.